


Iconoclasm

by bluebacchus



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, Ben Hargreeves' Tentacles | Bentacles, Falling In Love, Gen, Healthy Relationships, Ice Play, M/M, Sibling Bonding, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 19:28:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20031106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebacchus/pseuds/bluebacchus
Summary: Six umbrella tattoos get covered up, two people fall in love, and one family finds its way back together.[The tattoo shop AU; in which Klaus is an artist, Dave is an artist, and the Bentacles love chicken nuggets]





	Iconoclasm

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! It's been too long, I know. This is an AU with no Vietnam, modern Dave, alive Ben, and no apocalypse that has been inspired by tumblr user bisexualgambit's tattoo parlour posts. I am weak and I had to write it.
> 
> There's a saucy Dave/Klaus sex scene near the end involving ice cubes (I blame the unending heatwave in London for producing this particular brand of smut) but you can skip it if you're here for the sibling bonding ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

0.04

The bell tinkled above the shop door, startling Klaus and making him hit the back of his head on the inside of the cabinet he was organizing behind the desk.

“It’s just me,” Dave called, but Klaus stood up to say good morning. He would never waste an opportunity to talk to Dave.

“Morning!” he yelled. _Shit, _he thought. That was much too enthusiastic for ten o’clock.

Dave smiled. He looked like sunshine personified.

“I love that you’re a morning person too. I brought you a latte anyways,” he said, handing over a massive cup of delicious hot beverage. It spilled a little onto Klaus’s hand, and Dave swiped up the fallen droplets with his finger before licking them off. Klaus wondered if he was secretly an incredibly love struck wicked witch of the west with a weakness for latte. He felt like he was melting.

“Hrrng,” he said. Dave was still smiling at him. “I should…” Klaus gestured at the cabinet filled with excess inks. “Clean. Cabinet.”

“Oh,” Dave nodded. “Right.” He headed further into the shop to his station, disappearing behind the partition. Klaus bent down to get back to the cabinet, taking only a short break to curl into the fetal position and curse his stupid mouth and his stupid feelings.

The bell tinkled again, but Klaus didn’t look up. He could tell from the clink of the stupid metal spurs that Julio insisted on wearing on his boots that it was his boss.

“Oi Klaus, why is your head bleeding?”he asked, leaning over the counter.

Klaus returned to the fetal position. Maybe if he looked like he had suffered a mild traumatic brain injury he could justify spouting idiotic nonsense to Dave all the time.

“Hit my head,” he said from the ground.

“Put a bandage on it, your first client’s in half an hour.”

* * *

They had no bandages in the shop, which was a serious issue considering how many tattoos they did each day. Klaus had to improvise with what he could find- he stuck some gauze over the bump on his head and secured it with the headlamp he found in the emergency kit. It didn’t match his outfit and made his hair stick up in tufts like a deranged Shih Tzu who hadn’t been groomed in three years. He looked ridiculous, so of course the first thing Dave said to him was

“Woah, you going spelunking in the boiler room?”

“Yeah,” Klaus said. He didn’t know they had a boiler room.

“Wow, I didn’t know we had a boiler room!” Dave clapped his hands together like a child. “You should show me one day. It sounds like a cool place if you need a headlamp for it!”

“It’s pretty dangerous in there right now,” Klaus said, thinking on his feet. “Full of… chipmunks.”

“Chipmunks?”

“Yeah, they made a nest back there and a few have gone feral. I’m going to clean them out.”

“Good luck! Let me know if you need any help. I can use to broom to chase them into a bag. I used to be on a curling team so I can sweep really fast!”

Klaus nodded. Of course Dave knew how to do a sport. He was exactly Klaus’s type: good at things, handsome, charming, and completely out of his league. And now he’d have the mental image of Dave in tight pants yelling “harder! Harder!” at a dumb rock on a dumb sheet of ice and somehow that was going to make him horny as hell when he got home from work.

* * *

“The girls are hungry,” Ben said, lifting up his shirt and letting his terrifying tentacles of terror emerge cautiously from a wormhole in his bellybutton. They reached towards the 50 piece chicken nugget meal deal slowly, as if asking for permission. When Ben nodded, they tore into the nugs with alarming dexterity and speed.

“I’m trying to get them onto veggie burgers but they’ve been getting so fussy,” he said. Ben took a bite of an apple as he reclined on their cushy sofa, watching the Bentacles feed. “How was work?”

Klaus looked away from the enthusiastic display on how to down 50 nuggets with maximum carnage to bang his head against the wall.

“Dave?”

“I’m an idiot,” Klaus said.

“You say that like it’s a revelation.”

“Why can’t I summon Marilyn Monroe and have her possess me when I flirt? Why do I have to do it all myself? It isn’t fair.”

“Why don’t you just talk to him like a normal person?”

Klaus snorted. “Wow, Ben, real hot take. I’ll just start up a conversation with the love of my life! Easy! I’ll just approach him! Talk to him about the weather! Wow, what a lovely day we’re having, it sure would be nice with a little bit of LOVE.”

Ben raised an eyebrow. One of his tentacles had a ridge above its… food hole? Cloaca? Klaus didn’t know what it was, but it looked like an eye with a unibrow above it, which the tentacle raised in an uncomfortably similar way to its host.

“How do I talk to him? We’re always busy.”

“Get him to give you a tattoo, dumbass,” Ben said. He retracted his tentacles and attempted to tidy the chicken nugget explosion on the coffee table. Klaus pondered for a minute.

“Hey, that’s a great idea!”

Ben shrugged. “I know. Now leave me alone, I have midterms coming up.”

* * *

They’d come a long way in the past ten years.

Ben was the first to leave. He took off in the middle of the night without any warning, disappearing without a trace. It was a month before Klaus found him, purely by chance. He was out buying drugs and stumbled across his dealer’s little sister who punched him in the ribs and asked him why he couldn’t be cool and smart like his brother. The words “cool” and “smart” immediately excluded all other siblings and he found out that Ben had been working odd tutoring jobs when he was out “training” and had saved up enough to rent out a shitty basement apartment on the east side.

By the end of the week, Klaus had moved in and was cohabiting the tragic apartment with his brother and a nest of gruesome brown spiders.

The job as a tattoo artist was also an accident. Ben in his all-knowing wisdom suggested painting as an alternative to hard drugs and after a solid chuckle, Klaus gave it a go. He started commissions for independent coffee shops and bars, and one day Julio cornered him and demanded art in exchange for a mentorship. It was the best deal Klaus ever got that didn’t involve him sucking someone off for heroin, so he agreed.

It was just him and Julio at the Vaquero until they became busy enough to hire another artist, and somehow Julio decided he hated Klaus and hired Dave who was all around perfect and turned Klaus into a hot gay mess every time they were in the same room. Which, considering their studio was essentially one big room with partition screens instead of walls, was all the time.

* * *

The bell tinkled above the door, but this time Klaus was ready. He was wearing his nicest outfit and took the time to comb his hair this morning, and had gotten up fifteen minutes early to stop and pick up muffins from the bakery on the way to the Vaquero (apple cinnamon was his favourite but Dave preferred blueberry; he would swear to the end of his days that he did not learn this by picking Dave’s muffin wrapper out of the trash and sniffing it last time he brought one for breakfast). Dave walked in with two coffees and Klaus presented matching pastry bags, each containing a muffin. It wasn’t as environmentally friendly as getting them in one bag but presentation was everything.

“What’s the occasion?” Dave laughed, trading a latte for a muffin.

“Can’t I buy my favourite artist a muffin on a beautiful Wednesday morning?”

“You’re so sweet, Klaus.”

Klaus’s brain short circuited and he forgot what he was going to ask. It was in there somewhere, shouting logic while doves flapped their wings and rainbows sprouted from the earth and imaginary Klaus and imaginary Dave held hands and skipped through fields of tulips.

“It’s from all the muffins,” Klaus said. “Wait, I just remembered why I need you!”

“Me?” Dave asked, a chunk of muffin halfway to his mouth. He looked so cute eating a muffin. Klaus wanted to wrap him up in blankets and feed him muffins forever.

“Can you tattoo me?”

“Oh,” Dave said. He sounded almost disappointed. “Of course I can. What are you thinking?”

Klaus hadn’t thought this far in advance. “Uh,” he said.

“Is it the cover up you’ve been talking about? Because you’re the cover up guy, not me.”

“I trust you. It can’t be worse than what I’ve already got. Just do… something. Anything. Get rid of it.”

Dave nodded. “Want to do it now?”

* * *

Three hours later, Klaus admired his left forearm for the first time since he was a child. The black umbrella was gone, hidden beneath a blackwork pattern of raindrops and clouds.

“It’s the inverse of the umbrella,” Dave had explained. “It’s dark and bold and, well, _good_ whereas the old one was-“

“Atrocious. Disgusting. Representative of a childhood full of abuse. You know I got that when I was twelve?”

Dave didn’t know anything about the Academy. He must have crawled out from under a rock in Handsometown, because everyone in this city knew about the Academy to some extent.

“Well, now it’s a storm. Just like you,” Dave said as he covered it up, fingers brushing the tender skin on the inside of Klaus’s arm.

“What does that mean?”

“It’s just- wild. Free. Unapologetic.”

“Are you flirting with me, David?”

He meant it as a joke, because humour is the last refuge of the desperate. Dave was clearly a sunshine guy. He belonged on a beach in California saving turtles, or teaching tiny refugee children how to play volleyball.

But Dave blushed and awkwardly patted Klaus’s arm twice, dismissing him.

“Thanks for letting me do that one. I’ve been wanting to experiment with my style more.”

“You can do more! I got long arms, lots of space for practice!” Klaus wiggled his arms in the air, hoping he came across as a wild and crazy guy rather than a desperate loser. He just spent a whole three hours with Dave and they had something resembling a normal, human conversation. He needed more.

“Yeah, I might take you up on that!” Dave smiled at him and Klaus bid the pale, unmarked skin on his arms farewell.

0.06

“I’ve always wanted to go to Thailand.”

Klaus was laying face down on the tattoo chair, face pillowed on his left arm while Dave bent over his right shoulder, filling in bold lines with black ink.

“Yeah?” Klaus said. He couldn’t see Dave from this angle, so he closed his eyes and tried to relax.

Dave hummed in agreement. “They have this cool tattoo convention every year. I’d love to watch one of the monks do a Sak Yant tattoo.”

“Would you get one?”

Dave paused. “I don’t know. If it felt right, I guess.”

“Do you have any tattoos?”

Dave laughed. “None, if you can believe it. I’m too scared I’ll change my mind after it’s done.”

“Well,” Klaus said, craning his neck to look at Dave, “I’ve heard there are some artists who are incredibly talented and do amazing cover-ups.”

“I think I heard the same thing. There. Done,” Dave announced, wiping off the last oozes of blood and ink from the tiger stripes. Klaus sat up and almost ran to the mirror to look.

It was a tiger, prowling over his right shoulder and looking to pounce down his arm. Dave had wanted to try something inspired by neo-Thai artwork and he had done an amazing job. It looked so powerful.

“I love it,” Klaus said. “It’s so…”

“Sexy?” Dave offered with a small smile.

“I was going to say powerful, but same thing, I guess.”

“It suits you.”

Klaus nodded. Dave was always generous with compliments, but Klaus liked to believe they were genuine. Not flirtatious by any means, but Dave was too kind not to mean them.

* * *

“I want to get rid of it,” Ben announced as he stormed through the door.

“Huh?” Klaus had been having a quick desk nap during the lull between clients. He woke up with his hair sticking up and the imprint of a stapler smushed into his cheek.

“The umbrella. Get rid of it.”

Klaus yawned. “Get me a coffee first, mi hermano, then tell me what you want done.”

Ben returned with the biggest blackest coffee he could find and Klaus downed it in record time while Ben tried to explain the significance of Nikolai Gogol’s Dead Souls to him.

“Can you just like, bring the book? Then I can at least look at the cover to figure something out.”

Ben took off again, returning an hour later with a stack of library books. They settled on a trashpolka redesign of one of the covers – solid red and black geometric shapes would make up the background, leaving a negative space outline of a 19th century Russian graveyard. It was macabre and it was depressing, in Klaus’s opinion, but Ben loved it.

“One of my profs asked me about it today. He used to be a fan, he said. Can you believe that? A grown ass man telling me that he used to love me when I was a kid. That’s so messed up.”

“Ooh, Bennie has an admirer,” Klaus mocked. He was partway through the first square. Ben had tensed visibly. He wasn’t sure if it was from the pain or the memory.

“I don’t want people to remember me for the shit dad made us do. Made _me_ do,” he added softly. “I want the kids I teach to remember me because I’m a good teacher, not because I was famous when I was twelve.”

“You’re going to be a great teacher, bro. Teaching kids is how you got out of the Academy. It must be ‘meant to be’ or something.” Klaus wiggled his free hand to illustrate the hands of fate, pushing Ben to be something better than what their father had planned for them.

* * *

Ben had started coming around the tattoo shop more often after that on the way back from university classes, bringing Klaus cheap university coffee to offset his muffin debt but really just there to watch Klaus be an oblivious dumbass while Dave flirted with him.

And it was on one of these visits, desperate to escape the inevitability of writing a history paper that Ben nearly had a heart attack and died a terrible Klaus-inflicted death.

“What the fuck, Klaus!? Did you get stabbed again?”

Klaus laughed, lifting up his crop top a little bit higher so the top of the bandage showed.

“Just a tattoo,” he said.

“What do you mean, _just _a tattoo?” Dave called from his cubicle. “It’s some of my best work!”

“I just meant that it’s not a stab wound!”

“Fair enough. Sorry again if I freaked you out earlier,” he called. The buzzing of the tattoo gun resumed.

Ben raised an eyebrow. “Explain.”

Klaus slinked back behind the desk where he kept his snacks. He offered a cookie to Ben, who shoved the Oreo in his mouth so fast Klaus offered him the rest of the box.

“He said it was sexy,” Klaus whispered.

Ben stared. “And?”

“And what? _Dave _said it was _sexy!_”

Ben shook his head, failing to understand this groundbreaking development. “Didn’t he say the tiger was sexy?”

“Well, yeah, but he said the _tiger _was sexy. This time he just-“ Klaus wrapped his arms around himself and rocked back and forth, smiling into the middle distance. “I was admiring it in the mirror- it’s a Thai temple to match my tiger- and he came up behind me and he _almost _put his hands on me and I swear he checked me out and said, and I quote, ‘This is the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.’ Not the sexiest thing he’s ever _done. _The sexiest thing he’s ever _seen._”

“So? Ask him out.”

Klaus gasped dramatically. “No way.”

“He basically just said he finds you super hot.”

“That doesn’t mean he wants to go out with me.”

“It does for normal people.”

“Are you saying I’m not normal?”

“Yes.”

“He’s probably just being nice because we work together.”

Ben’s eyebrows were so high up on his forehead by now that they were practically interstellar.

“You’re an absolute dumbass, Klaus.”

Klaus shrugged and popped a cookie in his mouth.

0.07

The buzzing of the tattoo gun was strangely comforting. The steady hum created a fugue of noise that drowned out the ghosts, screaming and yelling and calling for him again and again. The prickles of pain in his right arm as it was filled with lines and colour helped too. It gave him something to focus on other than Dave’s perfect face.

He was halfway through the sleeve, finishing up the third session on Klaus’s upper arm. His formerly pale bicep had been transformed into a lush jungle of greens and blues that extended from the tiger prowling over his shoulder.

“It just feels right,” Dave had said when Klaus asked why he wanted to do a jungle themed sleeve. If Klaus had any protests, they died when he saw Dave’s design. It wasn’t just colour that he was adding to the skin. It was texture and sound and history. The history of what exactly he didn’t know, but he could feel a story being told beneath the leaves and trees and little birds that called to each other in yellows and reds.

“It’s violent but at the same time there’s peace in it,” Dave explained. Klaus felt like he knew more about Dave from this tattoo than he ever learned from speaking to him.

Not that he was getting tattooed in silence. He had hours and hours of time alone with him, and Klaus was determined to make the most of it. They talked about the important things, like life and love (or lack of it) and work, and then once those topics were exhausted they moved onto the more important ones, like dreams (aspirational and literal- Dave had recurring dreams about Highland cows chasing him, which was ridiculous and adorable), favourite colours, the worst books they’ve ever read, and the future of sustainable energy.

Needless to say, Klaus would endure the pain of a thousand tattoo needles to keep this going.

* * *

Ben was visiting him at work when the bell tinkled.

“Hey guys,” a voice said shyly. It sounded like Vanya.

Klaus and Ben both turned. It _was _Vanya. Her eyes were rimmed with red but she was standing tall- taller than Klaus had ever seen her before.

“Hey, sis,” he said. He wasn’t sure if he should reach out and offer her a hug. Ben did, but then again, Ben was probably the closest one of them to Vanya. He could get away with it.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“I freaked out in front of the Orpheus and dumped my boyfriend.”

Klaus made a sympathetic noise.

“Don’t do that. I feel good about it,” she said. She didn’t sound sure.

Klaus offered an enthusiastic “hooray!” instead.

She smiled weakly.

“I’m proud of you, Van,” Ben said as he pulled her back into a hug. “What did he do that made you snap?”

“It’s stupid.”

“I doubt it.”

“He said I should go get the umbrella tattoo.”

Klaus and Ben snorted and turned up their left forearms.

“Good choice not to,” Ben said.

“You’re lucky you weren’t part of the academy,” Klaus said.

“I didn’t feel lucky.”

“If I could erase it all, I would.”

“I still have nightmares.”

Vanya looked a little bit happier. “You know, I’ve wasted so much time being sad because I was never allowed to be angry. And then, I just like, let go-“

“Let it go! Let it gooooo-“

“Shut up and let me finish.”

“Ooh, I like this Vanya. She’s feisty!”

“I just let go and let myself _feel_ and I listened to myself for the first time in years and… I dumped him. In the middle of the street. In front of everyone! And it felt so good! I haven’t felt that good since me and Diego started that punk band ten years ago.”

“Dad shut that down, didn’t he? Sent you off to Paris or something?”

“He sold my guitar while I was at a violin recital.”

“What a dick,” Klaus and Ben said at the same time.

“Anyways, I think I might go pawn the violin and see if I can find a little electric guitar. Dad’s dead, I’m angry, and I want to scream about it.”

“Hell yeah, sister!” Klaus said. “Do you want me to tattoo you? Something punk rock for your new look?”

She thought about it for a minute. “Give me a violin smashed over an Orange amp. With an homage to Bikini Kill.”

Klaus smiled. Vanya was going to be an absolute punk rock badass.

0.02

He hadn’t had much time to lay awake at night and think about his undying love for Dave.

That was a lie. He thought about Dave a lot. He just did something productive with it. Klaus had been painting like a madman (or one of his Basement Painting Goblins in The Sims) partly out of inspiration and partly because the annual summertime Art Walk was coming up and he secured his spot in front of the bowling alley three months ago and figured he should probably have something new to display.

It was the first time he had positive emotions to pour into art. Gone were the portraits of bodies suspended in water, of terrible and beautiful ghosts, of children treated like experiments. Instead, he painted forests with sunshine arcing through the canopy of leaves, of Highland cows frolicking in the highlands, of hands holding hands tightly under the brunch table. If he wasn’t so far gone it would be sickening.

“And done!” Dave exclaimed, lifting the buzzing needle away from Klaus’s wrist. Their final session for the jungle sleeve was done.

“It’s amazing, Dave,” Klaus said. He rotated his arm in the mirror. “If I die, cut this arm off and put it in the Louvre.”

“Oh come on, it’s not-“

“It _is_ that good. I love it.”

“Thanks,” Dave said. The impending silence stretched between them.

“So-“

“Do you-“

“Sorry,” they said together.

“You go first,” Dave said.

“Such a gentleman,” Klaus replied. “Do you want to come to the Art Walk tomorrow? I’m set up in front of the bowling alley. I’m taking the portrait from the entrance with me. And some new stuff. If you’d like to see it.”

“I’d love to.”

* * *

“Do you think he’ll really show up?”

“Quit asking! You know he will.”

“What if he just said he’d show to be nice?”

“Klaus,” Ben grabbed his brother by the shoulders and shook him so hard Klaus could feel his brains rattle around inside his head, “Stop overthinking.”

Klaus shook his head petulantly and shifted his lawn chair away from Ben’s. He crossed his arms, brooding silently amidst the chatter from the nearby artists and patrons.

“I refuse to acknowledge your optimism. He might not show up, and I’m totally prepared for that,” Klaus said as he intently watched the sidewalk to his left for any sign of Dave.

“You don’t need to worry about that,” Ben said.

“What? About complete and utter heartbreak?”

Ben had to clear his throat twice before Klaus finally turned to look at him. And Dave. Because Dave was standing beside his brother wearing a green v-neck t-shirt and jeans and looking absolutely delectable in both.

“Hi!” Klaus squeaked.

“Hey,” Dave said, sliding his hands in his pockets. They stared at each other for a long moment.

Ben, taking pity on their awkward silence but also craving coffee, said, “What, you don’t bring us coffee on days off?”

If anything, Dave looked more uncomfortable as he addressed Klaus. “Actually, I was wondering if you wanted to go for a drink?” As an afterthought, he turned to acknowledge Ben and was about to say “both of you,” but Ben interrupted.

“He’d love to. Go on, I promise I won’t take credit for your art.”

Klaus just nodded. For someone who was about to hit the pub with the guy he’s in love with, he looked like a man headed to his executioner.

* * *

Without the buzz of the tattoo gun to fill the silence, Klaus sat stiffly in the booth wondering what to say that was appropriate pub talk. He wondered if it looked like they were on a date. For a fleeting moment, he wondered if they _were _on a date.

Dave brought their drinks back to the corner booth and slid in beside Klaus. Dave was sitting much closer to the centre of the booth than he was, Klaus noticed. Was he trying to get closer? Or was it a power move to assert dominance by taking up more than half of the corner booth?

“So-“

“How-“

They started at the same time again. Klaus laughed nervously.

“Your paintings are amazing.”

“Oh,” Klaus said with a slight shock. “Thank you.”

“I stare at the one in the entrance of the Vaquero every day and I never get tired of it. There’s so many layers to it. Or at least, that’s how I see it.”

The painting Dave was talking about was a massive canvas with blues and greens depicting a sea of ghosts that drifted peacefully. Only one had its eyes open. The ghost in question had been watching him paint, silently observing until she walked through him, tracing a spectral hand through the painting and looked at Klaus with such devastation in her eyes that he painted them from memory on the abstract ghost she touched. He never saw her again after that.

It was the first one Julio bought.

“I’m surprised you like that one so much. You seem-“ Klaus trailed off, suddenly aware that he didn’t have any idea what he was going to say.

“I seem what?” Dave asked wryly.

“Happy,” Klaus finished. He didn’t know why he said that.

Dave shifted a little bit closer. “I am happy,” he said. “Happier than I have been in a long time.”

Klaus wiggled towards him, resting his elbows on the table and letting their shoulders brush together.

“I-“ Dave started, but a giant man with a grizzled grey beard and leather jacket approached them. He was carrying a motorcycle helmet.

“Can we help you?” Klaus deadpanned. He would never forgive this man for interrupting the most meaningful action he’s got in years. A little bit of shoulder nudging was good for the soul.

“I need to ask, man. Where did you get that sleeve done? It’s incredible.”

Klaus immediately perked up and threw up two finger guns pointing at Dave.

“This guy right here!”

“Nice work, brother,” the scary man said, nodding approvingly. “Do you have a business card?”

Dave fished one out of his wallet and handed it to the man with a bewildered smile. He let his thigh brush against Klaus’s as he put his wallet back in his pocket.

“We should go out together more often,” Dave joked after the man had returned to his table of motorcycle enthusiasts and flashed the card around.

“Hrng,” Klaus said, nodding.

* * *

“So, I hear you’re getting rid of these monstrosities.”

“Good morning, Diego,” Klaus yawned. All the lattes in the world couldn’t wake him up this morning. He stayed up recounting and analyzing every single detail of his non-date with Dave while Ben pretended to listen and edited a research paper. He then sat up most of the night analyzing the details of the analysis and estimating his chances with Dave. He pulled out the calculator around midnight and the protractor around two, which signalled either a mathematical breakthrough or absolute insanity.

He didn’t reach a conclusion.

Klaus had always been bad at math.

“Vanya showed me hers.”

Klaus was surprised. Last time they had gotten together he was pretty sure Diego had threatened to maim her over her book.

“We’re getting the band back together.”

“No way!”

“Yeah, and I can’t have this piece of shit showing when I rip my shirt off after shredding on the bass.”

Klaus made a mental note to wear a blindfold to their first show.

“Alright, what do you want? I’ll see if I can fit you in.”

“Mom,” Diego said proudly.

“What?”

“Mom. The traditional mom tattoo. With the heart. And the word mom.”

“Are you serious?” Klaus knew Diego had always had a soft spot for Grace. “But she’s a robot?”

“She’s our mom, asshole.”

Klaus backtracked. “I, uh, just mean that we can do something cool with it. Maybe have some wires coming out of the heart in the shape of an aorta or something.”

Diego looked like he was about to stab Klaus in _his _aorta, but his look softened. “Actually, yeah. That sounds badass.”

Klaus exhaled and went to go get some extra pillows for when Diego inevitably fainted.

0.03

For some reason, Julio had eTalk playing on the TV in the waiting area instead of the usual eclectic mix of music pumping through the speakers. The droning of the hosts’ gossip was stabbing into Klaus’s brain. He was just about to go change it when he heard his last name.

“Actress Allison Hargreeves has gained shared custody of her daughter, Claire, with ex-husband and fellow actor Patrick Pierce. Allison was unavailable to comment, but we interviewed Patrick-“

Klaus shut the TV off. He didn’t care to listen to Allison’s ex-husband and instead whooped a singular whoop of joy. He couldn’t wait to meet his niece.

* * *

“I didn’t think you’d agree to this,” Dave admitted quietly.

“Why? I don’t seem like the type?”

“Not really.”

“I wouldn’t do this with anyone else.”

Dave beamed at him and pressed the tattoo needle against his skin. Klaus wondered if Dave knew that he wasn’t just talking about being his tattoo guinea pig. He’d agreed to let Dave try a watercolour tattoo on his left arm even though he was convinced it would end up looking like something a teenage girl would get on her ankle when she turned 18.

Shame on him for doubting Dave’s skills. It was a paintbrush done in black drips of ink that painted a stripe of rainbow colour up from his wrist. It was simple, elegant, and Dave admitted that he drew up the design with Klaus in mind.

“Do you want to go for dinner?” Dave asked suddenly.

Klaus jumped. He was so far in his own head he had tuned everything out, including the man who occupied his thoughts.

“Yeah, for sure. Like a work thing?” he asked.

Dave raised an eyebrow. “Julio’s not invited.”

“A work thing where we talk shit about Hooly? Because he’s a great guy who got me out of a pickle and all I could do is poke fun at how he wishes he was a cowboy.”

Dave closed his eyes and breathed out through his nose for seven seconds. Klaus counted them.

He then put the tattoo gun down gently and grabbed Klaus by the shoulders, shaking him so hard he nearly slid down the chair. He would have, if his leather pants didn’t stick against the vinyl of the chair and made a squeaking farting sound as he slid down a few inches.

“I like you, Klaus. I like you a lot. I’m asking you on a date. Because I like you.”

Klaus gaped at him. “Like, as a friend?”

Dave made a strangled sound and pushed Klaus back into the chair. With his face.

His face, which was pressed up against Klaus’s. More specifically, his lips were smushed up against his. He was kissing him. Oh God, Dave was kissing him. Klaus panicked, sitting up and headbutting Dave in the process.

“Ow!”

“Sorry. But. Just. You want to date me?”

“Yes,” Dave said.

“You find me attractive?”

“Yes.”

“You like my personality?” Klaus added tentatively, pushing his luck.

“_Yes,” _Dave said.

“Oh,” Klaus said in disbelief.

“No?”

“No, not no. Just oh. Oh as in ‘oh, that’s good,’.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

And like he had been dreaming of for the last year, Klaus leaned in and kissed him.

* * *

They were holding hands over the counter making eyes at each other when Allison walked in, holding Claire’s hand.

“We don’t tattoo minors, ma’am,” Klaus joked, and caught Allison in a hug.

“Claire, this is your Uncle Klaus,” Allison said, letting Klaus bend down to shake Claire’s hand. “Claire is going to pick out a design for me.”

“Oh, fun! Want to see my binder? I’ve got some fun stuff in there.”

Claire nodded, and Klaus handed her a big black binder that was filled with unclaimed tattoo designs and prints of his paintings. As Claire flipped through it, another woman entered the shop.

“Hello!” Dave waved at the newcomer.

The woman approached the counter. “Do you have a portfolio? I’ve heard great things about this shop but I’d like to see for myself.”

“Yeah, here’s Julio’s and that little girl has Klaus’s. I, uh, don’t have one yet, but I have a pretty eclectic skill set.”

“I wish there was a way to see your work. My husband has your card, I think.”

Dave thought for a moment. “Actually… Klaus!” he called. Klaus emerged from his cubicle holding a pad of paper with a freshly sketched elephant.

“Yeah?”

“Can you show this lady some of my tattoos?”

Klaus ripped his shirt over his head and stood bare-chested, arms out to his sides like a punk rock Jesus statue.

“Wow,” the woman, Allison, and Dave all said at the same time. Dave still couldn’t take his eyes off the temple he tattooed on Klaus’s stomach. He wasn’t lying when he said it was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. Dave shifted Julio’s binder so it covered his crotch, just in case. He needed it when Klaus turned to show his back, bare except for the tiger and a pair of sacral dimples. Dave wanted to touch them, dig his thumbs into the divots in Klaus’s back and pull him against him. He wanted to lick them.

Dave excused himself and jogged to the toilet, hoping that Klaus’s sister and niece wouldn’t hold his erratic behaviour against him.

* * *

Claire decided on an elephant because it was her “most favouritest” animal. Allison nearly cried when Claire said it was because they never forget, and now her mom will never forget that Claire loves her.

Claire held her mom’s hand the entire time Klaus was working on the cover-up, and he found himself chatting more with his niece than his sister, teeth clenched against the pain. She was a pretty intelligent kid and he supplied stories of him and his siblings getting up to mischief in their youth.

He didn’t notice Dave leaning against the entrance to his cubicle, watching with an impossibly fond expression on his face. Allison noticed though, and she was going to tease Klaus about his new boyfriend for hours.

0.05

It was the best dinner Klaus had ever had. He barely tasted the food, true, but he was sitting in the corner booth snuggled up to Dave. This time, their shoulders bumped together, but so did their feet, their knees, their arms. They sat hip to hip, and when the food was taken away, Klaus slipped an arm around Dave’s waist and leaned his head on his shoulder.

“You feel nice,” Dave whispered, so quiet Klaus could barely hear it.

“Hmm?”

“You feel nice beside me. You feel _right _beside me.”

Klaus raised his chin to look Dave in the eye. “I take it you won’t object to another date, then?”

Dave smiled. “I’d love to. And the next, and the next and the next.”

“Bold words,” Klaus said.

“You can’t scare me away, you know.”

“It seems that way.”

The tips of their noses brushed. The dim light offered by the candles in the restaurant offered them a cover of privacy that Klaus intended to take full advantage of. As he pressed his lips against Dave’s, a flash of blue light blinded him.

“Five!?”

Five had appeared in front of them towing a little red wagon behind him, in which lounged Dolores. She was wearing a sequin blouse that highlighted her leglessness.

Five swayed, catching the edge of the table and draining the rest of Klaus’s champagne.

“Really?”

Dave’s eyes widened. “Is this your brother? Is he drunk?”

Klaus shrugged. “He’s been a bit different since he came back from the end of the world.”

“Give me a tattoo,” Five slurred.

“Can’t tattoo drunks,” Klaus said.

“Or minors,” Dave offered unhelpfully.

Five turned to him, puffing up his chest and about to give an Old Man Speech.

“Seriously, leave me alone. I’m on a date.”

“I’ve been in love, you know. With this woman!” Five gestured at Dolores, who stared cheerfully at the ceiling. Dave sat quietly. It was all he could do.

“Great,” Klaus said.

“She’s a real woman, you know! Not like-“ he pointed at Dave. Dave was unsure if it was meant to be an insult or not.

“She has curves. Like a pinup girl. Give me my girl as a pinup tattoo. My tattoo as a girl. My pinup girl tattoo. Dolores tattoo.”

Klaus plucked an ice cube out of his water glass and hurled it at Five. He blinked away, but quickly returned for Dolores, grabbing the handle of the red wagon and wheeling it away on its squeaky wheels out the front door.

0.01

He did tattoo Five under the table (figuratively, not literally under the table- there’s not enough light under there), and after that, there was only Luther left. The umbrella cover-ups were done almost in the order that they left, Klaus realized, and he wondered if Luther would ever decide to get rid of his.

It was a year later, on Klaus and Dave’s last day of work before their holiday to Thailand that Luther walked in. He saw him and Allison strolling down the sidewalk, each holding one of Claire’s hands and lifting her up so she could pretend she was flying. It was precious, and even Julio stopped in the middle of a rant about Clint Eastwood to smile.

“I can’t believe you’re both abandoning me,” he muttered bitterly.

“We’re only gone for two weeks,” Dave said.

“But both at the same time? What am I gonna do by myself, huh? Why can’t you go separately?”

Klaus and Dave exchanged a look and then looked down at their joined hands. They certainly made it obvious that they were a couple. It had been an entire year. Hell, Julio had helped Dave move in with Klaus and Ben last month.

The bell tinkled, and then rang out with a _pang _as Luther smacked his head into it.

“Is it finally time to join the cool kids club?” Klaus asked instead of a greeting.

“Things have changed,” Luther said, looking back at Claire and Allison.

“For everyone, I think.”

Luther nodded. “Can you cover it up with the moon?”

Klaus cocked an eyebrow. “I guess some things stay the same.”

“I like the moon, alright?”

“Why don’t we do like, an abstract moon.”

“No.”

“A sketch of the moon?”

“No. Just the moon.”

“What do you mean, ‘just the moon’?”

“The moon. A picture of the moon.”

“A realistic moon?”

“Yes. The moon.”

Klaus shook his head and went to go find a picture of the moon that Luther approved of.

* * *

It took nine razors and twenty minutes to shave Luther’s forearm. Claire held his hand after he winced away the first time Klaus tried to apply the tattoo gun, and he was making good progress on covering up the umbrella with moon craters.

“Where are you going on vacation, Uncle Klaus?” Claire asked.

“Vacation?” Allison asked. “How do you know he’s going on vacation, Claire?”

“Instagram,” Claire shrugged. “He’s going with Uncle Dave.”

Klaus still got butterflies in his stomach when she called Dave her uncle. Somehow the approval of his nine year old niece made all the difference.

“We’re going to a tattoo convention in Thailand. Dave wants to learn from the monks. I’ll catch you a crocodile for a souvenir.”

“I’d rather have an elephant,” Claire said.

“I don’t think my suitcase is big enough. I’ll have to ride it across the ocean.”

“That’s fine,” Claire said. “I won’t have to give her a bath for a while.”

“We might go up to Vietnam for a bit after the convention,” Klaus told Luther and Allison. “I don’t want to be around any full moon parties.”

“What’s a full moon party?” Luther asked gruffly, in the way he did when he was the last to know something.

“Big party. Lots of drinks. Lots of drugs. Full of things I’ve been avoiding for the last few years.”

Allison looked uncomfortable and her question hung in the air.

“Which I have successfully avoided,” Klaus continued, answering the unspoken question. “Totally clean for two and a half years and with a full intent to keep it that way, aside from the odd glass of champagne. And cigarettes.”

Luther nodded stiffly.

“I’m proud of you,” he said. Klaus didn’t reply, but he couldn’t hide his smile.

(+ Dave)

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“Really sure?”

“Yes.”

“And you want me to do it?”

“_Yes!”_

“Okay, okay, I’m just making sure,” Klaus said, turning away from Dave, lying on his back in the chair. His shirt was off and the sharp V of his hips was incredibly distracting. Klaus was certain that if he did not have the responsibility that came with claiming Dave’s tattoo virginity he would leap on top of him and ravish him completely.

His own skin was stinging from the touch up Dave had done for him. The empty arches of his temple tattoo were now filled- _Klaus loves Dave_, it read across his stomach in the Thai alphabet. It was the only thing Klaus had learned to say in the local language when he and Dave had visited Thailand a year ago, and the first way (in words, at least) he told Dave he loved him.

And Dave had finally caved and asked Klaus to give him a matching tattoo with _Dave loves Klaus _spread across his abs and Klaus had been so choked up at the request that he could barely accept.

The buzz of the gun was comfortable white noise as Klaus set to work, concentrating on the lines like a true professional. He couldn’t wait to run his fingers over it when it was healed and they were pressed together, bodies entwined and tattooed skin colliding with tattooed skin.

“Ugh, that feels so weird,” Dave said as Klaus traced the first line of the temple.

“Does it hurt?”

“Yes. Lots. But it’s mostly weird.”

“Funny, isn’t that what you said about the first time you took it up the-“

“_Shush_,” Dave said emphatically, flushing bright red. “I shouldn’t have pushed myself to go so fast.”

“At least tattoos and anal don’t have that in common.”

A frustrated yell came over the partition.

“Quit talking about that stuff in the shop!” Julio yelled.

“All the good cowboys did it!” Klaus hollered back. “Save a horse, ride a cowboy!”

Julio abandoned his client and went to turn up the music. He predictably changed it to the soundtrack from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Klaus sighed, and returned to his task.

* * *

The following six weeks were utter torture. Touching the healing tattoo was strictly off-limits, especially to the foul incubation chamber that was a human mouth, and Klaus thought he was going to explode.

It must have been a stroke of pure genius (and the ability to count backwards to six) that the day the no-touch rule was lifted was their two year anniversary. It fell in the middle of an unexpected heatwave that struck in the middle of May. It was one of those rare days when Klaus worked and Dave didn’t, so when Klaus returned home and skipped up the steps to surprise his boyfriend with flowers (picked from the neighbour’s backyard while they were busy watching The Bachelor), he was shocked to find Dave slumped against the air conditioner wearing a tacky novelty button up open over a pair of black boxer briefs.

“It’s so hot,” he moaned. He pushed his forehead against the grill like he was trying to crawl inside it. “We can’t have hot, passionate, sweaty anniversary sex like this.”

“It would be very sweaty,” Klaus countered. “And hot. But not in the way you’re hoping.”

Klaus walked into the kitchen and grabbed a spatula before returning to Dave and sliding it under his forehead.

Dave let out a strangled sound and lifted his head. He had grill marks imprinted across his forehead.

“This side’s done.” Klaus kept a straight face, pulling Dave’s arm over his shoulders and helping him stand up.

“Nooooo,” Dave groaned, but he relented and let himself be dragged into the kitchen. “Grilled Dave tastes better with ice.”

“Does he?” Klaus raised an eyebrow.

“Oh.” Dave clearly hadn’t intended the innuendo, but he didn’t seem to be objecting. Klaus deposited him on the table- a big sturdy thing that could fit all the siblings around it and hold Luther’s weight. They had unfortunately witnessed this during their housewarming party as he leapt upon it to perform a mind-boggling rendition of Madonna’s Like a Virgin. This, of course, also meant it would hold a listless Dave Katz while Klaus ate his fill.

And after six weeks, Klaus was _ravenous. _

Dave let himself lie back on the table, arms splayed to the side like a sacrificial virgin until Klaus cracked the ice cube tray, separating a handful of ice cubes and holding them in his cupped hands until they began to drip.

“The chef prepares his dish,” Klaus said, in his best David Attenborough voice. He didn’t know where that came from. _Oh well_, he thought. He was nothing if not committed.

“The ice cube descends upon the Sexy Man, cooling him down until he is the perfect temperature for passionate, sweaty anniversary sex.” Dave was giggling under him like a child. His soft breathy laugh cut off with a gasp when Klaus pressed the first ice cube to his chest, sliding it down his sternum and directly over the exposed tattoo that Klaus had been drooling over since he finished it over a month ago. He bent his head to follow the path of melted ice with his tongue, up the tallest tower of the temple and up the centre of Dave’s chest. The rest of his ice cubes were mostly water, but he separated his hands and poured the icy water over Dave’s pecs, watching as his nipples stiffened at the chill.

Dave arched his back off the table when Klaus took a sensitive nipple in his mouth, licking and sucking and scraping his teeth over it until it was red and Dave was gasping, fingertips scratching at Klaus’s scalp as he moved to the other one. Ice forgotten, Klaus dropped down to Dave’s tattooed abs, mouthing over the tattoo and letting his tongue trace out _Dave loves Klaus _as his hands crept up under the hem of Dave’s boxers and lovingly stroked the skin of his thighs hidden by fabric.

When he looked up, Dave’s forehead was beaded with sweat and he was panting and flushed above him. In a noble feat of self control, Klaus returned to the freezer to pull out the ice cube tray, popping one in his mouth as he set the plastic tray down next to Dave.

The ice clacked against his teeth when he bent to kiss Dave, and hit Dave’s teeth as he pushed it into Dave’s mouth with his tongue. Since it was already there, he decided it would be convenient to leave his tongue inside his boyfriend’s mouth and swirled it around, chasing the chill of the ice and letting the cool water mix with saliva and flood both of their mouths as they kissed and sucked at each other’s lips.

“I feel much better now,” Dave whispered, pulling away with a final kiss. Without speaking, Klaus popped another ice cube in his mouth and moved to Dave’s neck, flushed and damp with the sweat that gathered under the collar of his shirt. He held the ice cube between his lips and trailed it over the vein that ran down Dave’s neck and disappeared under his collar bone. Dave shivered under him and ran his hands through Klaus’s hair again, burying his fingers against the heat of his scalp. When the first ice cube melted, Klaus took another, holding it against Dave’s left nipple (Klaus’s preferred nipple, if he must be honest, for reasons he cannot explain) with his tongue and then moving the ice to his cheek and warming the pink nub with the laving of his tongue.

Dave moaned long and low (_ah,_ thought Klaus, _that was why the left nipple was his favourite) _and thrust his hips up, desperately trying to find some friction to relieve the pulsing of blood in his cock. With the melted ice still cool in his mouth, Klaus swooped down, pulling Dave’s underwear down violently and letting his erection breach his lips, pushing past warm flesh and into the cool wetness of Klaus’s mouth.

“Jesus _fuck_,” Dave cried as his hips thrust up on their own accord. Klaus choked and sputtered, pushing Dave off him and letting the water spill out of his mouth like a waterfall.

“Shit, I’m sorry!” Dave reached down to trace his hand over Klaus’s cheek. “Are you okay?”

Klaus nodded, coughed violently, then shook his head. “No more water,” he rasped out. Dave nodded seriously and pulled Klaus up to him on the table.

“Bed?”

“Bed.”

* * *

Klaus knew it was an accident, and he knew that Dave knew that he knew, but he wasn’t exactly going to protest when Dave insisted on making it up to him by taking care of him in the gentle, sappy, romantic way that Klaus claimed to hate but really loved. He let Dave scoop him up and carry him to their bedroom where he laid Klaus down gently on the blankets, presenting him with a bouquet of flowers and an incredibly soft plush tiger which was promptly placed under the bed to protect its innocence.

And then he undressed Klaus slowly, ignoring the heated looks and nuzzling at Klaus’s newly exposed skin for far too long before finally pressing lips and hands to it, tweaking nipples and sucking earlobes and kissing over Klaus’s Thai temple tattoo like Klaus had done to him earlier, all while whispering _I love you _over and over again to each part of Klaus’s body that he encountered. When Dave finally pressed into him, Klaus’s body opened beneath him, like a flower reaching towards the sunlight. They rocked together, Dave trying to press deeper and Klaus trying to take him deeper, until the slow, steady pace that Dave had set had both of them whimpering and gasping as their climaxes grew closer.

“Please,” Dave whispered, pressing into the cradle of Klaus’s hips. Klaus had his legs wrapped around Dave’s waist, pulling him closer, and his arms wound around his neck when Dave spoke, pulling him in until Dave’s head rested on his shoulder.

“Please what?”

Dave pressed a kiss against Klaus’s neck as he continued thrusting into him.

“Stay with me? Love me? Kiss me? I don’t know what I was going to say,” Dave laughed, pulled back to look at Klaus beneath him. He expected Klaus to be laughing with him, but surprisingly, the look on his boyfriend’s face was serious.

“I will. I do. _Please,” _Klaus said, reaching up to capture Dave’s lips in a kiss. They came like that, entwined together and kissing passionately, gasping and moaning into each other’s mouths as the sun set on the world outside, oblivious to their bliss.

* * *

Luther had invited him and Dave to dinner.

There were four things wrong with this. One, _Luther _had invited him and Dave to dinner. Two, Luther had _invited_ him and Dave to dinner. Three, Luther had invited _him and Dave _to dinner. And four, Luther had invited him and Dave to _dinner._

Luther did not offer invitations, nor had he ever, in the history of the world, made dinner before. And he had invited Klaus and Dave.

Something was up.

Things had been much better with his siblings once the grotesque symbols binding them together had been covered up. The tattoos had marked the end of the academy forever, and this had brought them closer together. They were finally siblings instead of teammates.

But still, Klaus could feel the sting of anticipation behind his bellybutton as he walked up the path to Luther and Allison’s house upstate. It was the same feeling he had when he walked into his first intervention back at the academy. All his siblings had gathered around him like the ghosts in the mausoleum, shouting his name and demanding he get better while he, stoned out of his mind, screamed and screamed until he drowned them all out. He didn’t realize the screaming had been all in his mind.

But this time, there was no shouting, no screaming, and no demands.

“It’s a reverse intervention, really,” Ben told him privately after he tried and failed to play off the intervention parallels as a joke. “We haven’t been very good at showing our appreciation towards you.”

Ben left Klaus standing in the hall outside the bathroom, staring after his brother as he rejoined the party in the kitchen. Dave found him five minutes later, standing in the exact same spot, wondering where the salty water that wet his lips was coming from. It was only when Dave asked him what was wrong that Klaus realized he was crying.

Luther sat Klaus at the head of the table for dinner. It didn’t even seem to physically wound Luther to give up his preferred spot like it usually did. From where he was sitting, Klaus could see everyone’s arms. Ben’s Gogol tattoo, Allison’s elephant, Vanya’s broken violin, Diego’s robotic heart, Five’s pin up girl, and Luther’s moon stood out starkly against the monochrome surface of the table. Klaus looked down at his own arm, to the storm cloud that started it all, and then to the man who did it.

“To Klaus,” Dave said, offering his glass in a toast.

“To our brother,” Ben nodded, clinking his glass against Dave’s.

If Klaus could read minds, he would know that Ben was thinking about all the times Klaus had motivated him during his degree and how he had just been offered a permanent teaching job, or how Allison had decided to quit acting to study family law, a decision she made while tracing over the lines of her elephant tattoo, or that Five had just finished his first theoretical physics book which would go on to sell only thirty-three copies but would influence a new generation of thinkers, including one who would write her entire thesis on the mysterious dedication addressed to K.H., _whose life somehow became not so tragic_.

He would also find out that while Dave was thinking about how happy he was to be Klaus’s boyfriend, his thoughts kept wandering to the little red ring box buried at the back of his sock drawer.

“To our brother,” the rest of the Hargreeves repeated, clinking their glasses together.

Klaus took in the faces of everyone around the table, happy and smiling. _This_, he thought, _is what a family should feel like_.


End file.
